Take Me Away
by Kanotari
Summary: Seras finds a stray black kitty in a thunderstorm on the way home and begs Integra to let her keep it. Integra warms up to the small bundle of fur. Alucard, however, thinks it's the cat from hell. Because it is. Literally.
1. Home is Where the Heart is

**Well after trying to be serious and interesting, I've given up (temporarily). I remembered the fun I had getting drunk as sin and writing Forever Alone with my beta and partner in crime, Annavance92. So I tried it again. I let her pick the concept, and then I went with it. It should be amusing to say the least.**

**It's good to be back,**

**-Kano**

**It's good to be back as well. *winks***

**-Annavance92**

* * *

Seras pulled her raincoat closer to her body as the cold wind whipped around her. The pelting sideways rain beat on her knee-length boots and her polka-dot umbrella. Her feet moved as fast as they could on the slick pavement. It was miserable in London, and she was dying to get home to the warmth and relative safety of the Hellsing manor. A flash of lightning and a roll of thunder in the distance only spurred her on. As the crackle darted across the sky, Seras realized that she wasn't alone in the night. There was a small, dark figure huddled in the middle of the avenue, and it was breathing. She drew closer to it without a single thought for her own well-being. It could have been a large rat, or maybe a grey fox hit by a car. It could have been an escaped possum from the zoo, just playing dead. It turned out to be none of those things.

It was a kitten. The tiny beast only weighed a kilo or two, and most of it was soggy black fur. It mewled weakly as she approached, the sound her footsteps lost amidst the percussion of falling rain. She watched the emaciated kitten try to stand, but its tiny knees buckled under the weight of its light body. And suddenly the eternal teenager couldn't bear it anymore. The lump of quivering fur didn't even protest as she gently picked it up and gently slid it inside her coat. Her body didn't have the warmth of rushing blood that it once did, but it was a bit warmer than the frigid air. The kitten nuzzled into the soft fabric of her shirt, shaking with cold and fatigue. Now Seras had a reason to walk even faster; she wanted to get the kitten somewhere warm and safe.

The fireplaces in the Hellsing manor were roaring, courtesy of Walter, so it certainly was warm inside. Whether it would be safe for the kitten though, remained to be seen. Seras stumbled into Sir Hellsing's office looking like a bedraggled stray herself. Her umbrella had been abandoned on the sidewalk; she needed two hands to hold the animal against her chest. So instead, her blonde hair clung to her cheeks and her soaking coat left trails of droplets on the antique rugs.

Integra sighed heavily as she noted the small head poking up from the safety of Seras's jacket. "You know we can't," she answered before the girl could even ask.

The draculina's lower lip quivered. "But just look at her, so small and scared! We can't turn her out."

"She's a cute little thing, I have to admit. But I'm sorry." Integra shook her head sadly. "Surely you remember?"

Seras winced. She remembered alright, and she wasn't the only one.

"How could I forget?" a deep baritone voice said from the doorway. "Gordo was a delicious hamster."

"Sir Gordon," Seras corrected, hugging the kitten tighter. Her eyes turned to her master as he towered over her. It was him she needed to convince, not Sir Hellsing. Integra liked animals; she'd come around to a new pet.

"No!" Alucard said, quite firmly. He eyed the creature in her arms suspiciously. "I hate cats. They're always plotting something."

"But just look at her little innocent face!" his protegee insisted with wide eyed enthusiasm. "With her tiny paws and her big eyes and her little bitty whiskers and-" She paused to sniffle theatrically. "And... and... she's all alone!"

His nose wrinkled in disgust. "She smells."

Integra retorted for the girl. "Have you smelled yourself lately? You reek of blood and viscera."

"I take it you don't approve of my new cologne," the vampire said dryly. "But look at the thing," he said with an exasperated gesture. "It's pathetic. And the red eyes can't be a good sign."

Seras furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, looking at the cat once more. Sure enough, her master was right. By the light of the fire, she could see the sanguine irises peering back at her, full of hopefulness. "I think they're cute."

"It would make sense if she was an albino cat, but with that fur, I'm calling it. That cat is a demon," Alucard insisted.

"You just don't like cats," Integra sighed. "I know we face vampires and crazy stories all the time, but it's just a cat. Can't you make a sane argument?"

"It'll need food."

Seras brightened. "I can take care of her! I'll feed her little fishies and give her milk and I'll brush her and bathe her and get her a tiny little collar and-"

Alucard promptly quieted the girl by placing a gloved hand over her mouth. Her mouth tickled his palms as it continued speaking muffled nonsense, but he silenced her with a look. "If I see it," he said in a dangerously soft voice, "anywhere near my basement..."

Seras mumbled something insistently. With a roll of his eyes, her master removed his hand, wiping his glove on his crimson jacket. "I said," the girl repeated, "that you won't. You won't see her." Then she bent her head down to peer at the kitten. Her voice jumped a few octaves as she pressed her fingertip to one of the kitten's tiny paws. "Master won't see you because you'll be with me precious."

Alucard looked pleadingly at the Hellsing director. She was unsympathetic. Instead, with a wide smile, she turned to Seras and said, "Bring her here, please."

With a spring in her step, the blonde indulged her boss, carefully placing the kitten on Integra's lap. It purred immediately, taking in the warmth of the living woman's lap and the radiating heat of the fire. Integra placed a tentative hand behind the creature's ears, and her face lit up when it rubbed against her fingertips. "Alright," Sir Hellsing decided. "She can stay."

Seras threw her arms around the surprised director, knocking the other woman's glasses awry. Integra was fairly sure there was some high pitched squealing, for she saw Alucard squinting as he inserted his pinky into his ear in a very ungentlemanly fashion. He shook his head, glaring at the ball of fur that had arrived to make his life miserable. In the midst of their delight, the two blondes failed to notice that the kitten's red eyes stared back the vampire. If they'd have seen it, they might have noticed the eerie smile that crept across the feline's lips. They were too busy celebrating their victory over the No-Life King. But Alucard noticed it as he glared at the kitten. His lips twisted into a sneer as he retreated from the room. That cat had to go.

* * *

**Stay tuned for next time when Integra and Seras try to name their new pet, and when the kitten wanders into the one place it is forbidden: Alucard's bedroom.**


	2. The Devil You Know

Alucard slammed the door to his basement a little harder than necessary. The hinges groaned in protest, and the slab of wood reopened just a crack. Great, something to fix later. He had only just begun to lower himself into his coffin when the door groaned loudly. It made him sit up; he rarely got visitors down here. Now who might that be? And there it was, fluffy and adorable, bathing a paw with its hot pink tongue, staring at him with calculating red eyes. It finished after a moment, then kicked the door shut with a back paw. Now Alucard didn't know much about cats, but he knew enough to know that wasn't normal feline behavior. "Out with it, cat. What are you?"

It smiled again, flashing its pointed teeth. Then before his eyes, it began to shift and change. The vampire watched as the tiny kitten grew into an apex predator. Its teeth lengthened into rows of deadly fangs, while its tail split into two twitching appendages. The stray was weak and emaciated, but the demon it became, for a demon it was, was easily seventy kilos.

"Which one are you?" Alucard demanded. He sounded bored.

"Pardon?" the demon responded in her low husky voice. She rolled the 'r' instinctively.

Alucard was both unsurprised and unimpressed by her ability to speak. After their brief encounter last night, he had expected it. "Nekomata? Bakaneko? I know you're one of those Japanese cat demons, but you're all so painfully similar and insignificant that I try to ignore you altogether."

"Kasha," came the terse answer.

Alucard was familiar with the species. The race of cat demons was known for eating corpses, a polite bunch. In other stories, they stole corpses who had done terrible things in their lives and whisked them away to a hellish afterlife. "So you're here to what? Drag me off to Hell? I think Lucifer and I might step on each others' toes."

"Precisely," the cat responded. "My masters are very interested in your work here on Earth. They're dying to meet you."

"Glad to know I have fans. Tell you what, give me their names and I'll sign a few autographs."

"It doesn't work that way," the kasha responded. "I cannot return to Hell alone. You must come with me."

Alucard dismissed the feline with a wave of his hand. "Well then I hope you like London, because I like London and I have no intention of leaving."

"Then neither do I," she hissed back. "Mark my words, vampire. You will return with me, or I will do everything in my power to make your life a living hell."

The No-Life King closed the gap between them in two large strides. The room seemed to grow darker as the shadows drew closer to his body. "Care to tell me why I shouldn't snap your neck now and save myself the trouble?"

The cat gave another one of its disconcerting smiles, even more eerie in its demonic form. "You love the human and the girl vampire. They already love me." She mewed in the sweetest voice she could manage, looking at him with her most sympathetic red eyes. "In their eyes, I am a precious innocent thing. If you kill me, like... was it a hamster that you offed before?"

"It was possessed!" Alucard protested.

"Of course," the kasha purred, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "It will devastate your precious ones if they were to lose another pet."

The vampire glared at the less-than-innocent creature. It had a point, a good point. Integra and Seras were undoubtedly attached to their new flea-bitten stray. Their hearts blinded them to the truth that said kitten was likely to try to murder them in an attempt to persuade Alucard to go to Hell with her. "If you so much as scratch one of them..." he growled.

The creature raised one clawed and crossed her left breast. "I shall not. I'm no fool; you're stronger than me. You'll crush me like a bug. I shall simply have to work in more subtle ways."

"And I shall simply have to persuade the others that you are not what you claim."

The cat's eyes flashed with what the vampire would have wagered was excitement. "I shall enjoy our game, I think."

"You know, the last time I played a game of chess was over a century ago," Alucard said casually. "I barely knew the rules, but my strategy generally allowed me to prevail, until one night in Prague that is. I was playing against a Czech general, a bit of a prat but at least he was clever. He managed to reduce me to naught but my king. He still had six pieces, but I won the game."

The kasha took the bait. She was curious to know, "How?"

"Simple. I threw the chess board across the room, ripped out the man's stomach with my bare hands, and set his tent on fire," he said with the casual tone of someone asking about the weather. "My point is I hate losing, cat."

"Then I shall simply have to defeat you quickly," she purred back, shrinking to her house-cat form. With an amused twitch of her tail, she pawed the door open and slipped back into the livelier parts of the manor.

It only took her a minute to jaunt up the stairs and follow the sound of voices into the kitchen, where Integra and Seras were pouring through the pantry for something to feed their new furry friend. The demon in disguised rubbed along their ankles purring warmly.

"Is Miss Kitty hungry?" Seras asked with a coo, picking up the feline and wrapping her securely in her arms. The kitten's fur had already dried from her time near the fire, and she was starting to feel warm again.

"Miss Kitty?" Integra giggled. "Surely you can't be thinking of naming her that."

Seras held the kitten up before her, examining the bedraggled creature. "I think it fits."

"What about Midnight, because of her fur?" the Hellsing director asked. "It makes more sense."

"Or Elvis! You could be an Elvis!" The cat flattened her ears against her head, and Seras relented. "I don't think she wants to be an Elvis."

"Smokey?" Integra suggested. "Salem?"

"Chanel? Or... or Blacky?"

The Hellsing director rubbed her chin. "Suede? No that doesn't sound right at all."

"Kasha." A new voice entered the conversation. It was Alucard. "Call it Kasha."

"Why?" Integra asked. "It seems-"

"It's a demon cat. Kasha's a cat demon."

"She's not a demon!" Seras protested. Then she pressed her nose to the kitten's own soft pink one. "She's a sweet widdle kitty, isn't she?"

"Just wait until she eats something you like," Alucard snapped.

Integra, however was looking pensive. As much as she worried when she agreed with Alucard, he was occasionally very perceptive. "With two vampires and some preternaturally gifted humans under our roof, a demon name does suit our lifestyle. Kasha isn't a bad name."

Seras examined the creature in her arms closely. "Kasha-cat, Kashies, Miss Kashakins the Third. Yeah, I like it too."

The kitten looked at Alucard darkly, but then rolled over in the eternal teenager's arms and playfully batted at her dangling blonde hair. "You're so precious!" Seras cooed as she put the fuzzball down in front of a saucer of milk. Integra opened a can of tuna into a china bowl and placed it next to the saucer. The small animal sniffed the air, then hesitantly dipped a paw in the milk, licking it off when she discovered it was the source of the smell. She lost her balance as she tried to fully clean the soaking paw, and flopped over onto her side with a confused expression. The result made the two blondes devolve into fits of laughter as they rushed to help the black ball of fur up.

Alucard gritted his teeth. This cat was good. Of course, he realized, this meant _WAR!_


	3. Like a Cat Out of Hell

The No-Life King grinned maniacally, flashing his fangs at the small black kitten. He picked Kasha up by the scruff of her neck with a dark chuckle and carried her into his master's study.

"We have a problem," he announced, by way of greeting.

"And that would be?" Integra asked cooly, eyeing the poor kitten in his hand.

"Satan here hasn't had a trip to the vet. For all we know, it's carrying the bubonic plague."

The Hellsing director rolled her eyes. "Firstly, the plague was mostly carried by rats and not felines, and secondly, it hasn't been a significant threat since the fourteenth century, well before even you were born. But you do have a point," she admitted. "Kasha should be seen by a vet."

There was that wicked smile, creeping across his face again. "I'll handle it, Master."

Integra gripped the arms of her desk chair and crossed the room in a few large steps. She had to stand on her toes to peer into the vampire's eyes, but she set her jaw and did so. "You're doing something inconvenient for yourself without an order," the blonde observed over the top over her round spectacles. "You're up to something."

Alucard took a step backwards, and put a hand over his heart, feigning offense. "Of course not."

The Hellsing heiress countered her vampire's retreat by taking another stride forward into his personal space. She boldly poked his chest. "You are!"

"Am not!" he snapped back, resorting to playground tactics. He slapped her finger away.

"Are too!" Integra concluded with a self-satisfied smile. "Take the police girl with you."

Alucard sighed. Now he'd have to deal with the girl's tears. He let a little whine escape his throat. "Must I?"

"You're the one that made Seras, Alucard," Integra reminded him as she sauntered back to her chair. "It'll do you good to spend some time together."

So it was that the five-hundred and sixty-eight year-old vampire found himself sitting on a hard bench in a veterinarian's office next to his bubbly blonde protegee, who clutched a demonic kitten from hell to her chest. He had a clipboard on his lap and a pen in his hand, neither of which helped him much with the daunting task in front of him. "Name?" he muttered darkly. "Is that my name, or Integra's name, or your name? Or the name of that stupid cat?"

"If you'd calm down and read," Seras sighed, "you'd have seen that the line that says 'Owner's name'. The next line says 'Pet's name'. Miss Kasha Kitty's name must go there, yes it must." Her words devolved into high-pitched baby talk as she hugged the soft black furball which purred contentedly into her chest.

"Sir Integra Fairbrook Win-" His hand froze. "There's no way her name is going to fit on here."

"Hold Kasha. I'll tackle the nasty paperwork for you," the eternal teenager laughed, depositing her pet onto the other vampire's lap before he could protest.

Alucard glared at the hell fiend, who returned his icy stare. The fur on the back of her neck raised in hackles, as he flashed his pointed fangs. Their battle of wills was interrupted when Seras took a swing at her master's arm.

"You wrote her name down as _Lucifer!_" the munitions expert hissed. "Why not just call her Satan?"

"I toyed with Beelzebub," Alucard admitted as the girl viciously crossed out the remnants of his handwriting, scribbling the kitten's real alias in the margin in her messy looping handwriting. She finished the rest of the paperwork with her back turned to her master, giving him the cold shoulder and another opportunity to try to intimidate his unwanted houseguest.

With a shake of her head, Seras rose to give the form to the receptionist. To her credit, the girl behind the counter tried to read the words between the violent strikethroughs before giving up and crumpling the paper. "Name of the owner?" the receptionist droned.

"Integra Hellsing," Seras replied efficiently.

"Name of the pet?"

The blonde smiled. "Kasha."

The receptionist glanced over at the adorable kitten with the big red eyes, watching its tail twitch with amusement. She mirrored the other girl's attitude and beamed back. "Such a cutie. Species?"

Seras silenced Alucard with a pointed look before he could say 'demon'. "Cat. Bombay, I think?" she said instead.

"Gender?"

"Female."

Alucard chuckled at the cat in his lap. "For now," he whispered in his disquieting baritone. "See, cat, I'm not going anywhere, but your furry lady bits?" His shoulders shook with silent laughter.

Kasha tensed immediately and looked at her target with wide eyes.

It only made him laugh harder. "Well what did you think we were here for? Just a few shots? Oh no. Oh no no no."

The feline's claws dug into his leg, sharpened nails puncturing his beloved red coat. He cursed loudly as Kasha scampered away to hide. Seras and the receptionist looked at the No-Life King with twin expressions of confusion.

He held up the marred material, growling, "Stupid animal ruined my coat."

"Don't you call that poor dear names!" Seras tisked, admonishing her sire with a few shakes of her index finger. "She's probably scared out of her mind. It's a new place, and it must smell like so many other animals."

"Either that or I just informed her that she's about to be spayed."

The younger vampire put a hand on her hip. "Don't be ridiculous. She doesn't know what we're saying." Her moment of wisdom was overshadowed shortly thereafter, when Seras sank to her knees and called, "Kasha! Here kitty kitty!"

Alucard inhaled sharply, letting his keen senses do the work for them. He caught a whiff of fear and drank it in, savoring the adrenaline-fueled scent and the knowledge that he'd caused it. He peered under a bench with a superior smirk.

A pawful of claws darted out to greet him, leaving three angry red lines across his cheek.

The vampire's arm shot out and grabbed the unfortunate animal around the middle. "Get over here you little-"

His words were cut off by a vicious hug from Seras, who tore the frightened creature from her master's arms. "I was so worried Miss Kitty!" she cooed into the velvet fur. "Don't you do that to me again."

Alucard sighed, wishing for what must be the hundredth time that he could just snap the pretend-kitten's neck and be done with this passive-aggressive nonsense, but as he saw the relief on Seras's face, he knew he'd never be able to do it. He sighed again, heavier this time. Life was so much easier when he had been evil.

A door opened in the corner of the office, and a man with a white lab coat and a stethoscope around his neck stepped out, holding a file folder. "Hellsing?" he called, looking around the waiting room for a response.

"Here!" Seras called eagerly. She shuffled toward the open door with her arms full of struggling kitten. Kasha seemed quite intent on getting down, or up, or sideways. All she wanted was to get as far away from that vet as possible. The ball of fur managed to poke her head under the former police girl's arm in an attempt to escape underneath the vampire's armpit. The cat only retreated when she noticed Alucard's pristine gloves and fiendish smile waiting to catch her and return her to Seras's overwhelming love. The veterinarian held the door open for them, gently suggesting that a crate to carry their new cat might be a wise investment. Seras gently released her charge onto the table in the center of the room as the vet swiftly closed the door.

Kasha's pupils were so large, they threatened to swallow her irises. She kept low to the table's surface, as if curling into a ball would protect her from what was about to come. Alucard could hear her tiny heart fluttering like hummingbird wings and her breaths coming in shallow strained gasps. Music to his ears. The vampire reached over and tousled the dark fur between the kitten's ears, saying, "Ready to go home yet?"

His only response was a vehement hiss. Of course, that hiss could also have been for the tray of needles that a veterinary assistant entered with. The six syringes precariously balanced in the man's arms were prepped and ready for the kitten's vaccinations. The only catch was that the kitten was in fact not a kitten, but rather much more. The poor assistant was not ready for the feline's extraordinary room-crossing pounce. He was even less prepared for the kitten to land neatly on the sterile tray and knock it out of his arms. The flustered man scrambled to close the door as Kasha climbed over his shoulder, but she was too fast for him. The black cat crested the assistant's shoulder and bounded out the door, back into the waiting room. With a strength impossible for a creature of her small size, the kitten shouldered the door and forced it open just a few centimeters. That was all she needed. Her lithe body slipped through the gap before the veterinary staff could even react.

Seras, frozen in shock, simply watched with an expression of betrayal as her beloved pet sped away like a bat, or rather a cat, out of hell. The humans working the office were simply humans; they didn't have the speed to catch Kasha. That left only Alucard, and he certainly wasn't going to break a sweat over the demon-cat. He was getting exactly what he wanted.

The waterworks started as Kasha's tail disappeared around a corner and out of sight. Seras sniffled loudly once, then twice, and then the dam burst.

The No-Life King pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. The cat in disguise was gone, back to the hellfires that spawned her, leaving him with only a disconsolate vampire and some confused humans for company. Suddenly, he felt himself wishing that Kasha was back.


	4. Stray

Integra knew something was wrong when she heard the rush of footsteps racing for her office door. Her suspicions were confirmed when Seras barreled in and threw her arms around the older woman, knocking the Hellsing heiress's glasses askew. Integra perched her rounded spectacles back on the bridge of her nose as she gently patted the girl's back. "What's wrong?" she asked in a soothing voice, but she had a sneaking suspicion that she already knew.

Seras simply continued to blubber into her boss's lap, leaving Integra's question unanswered.

Alucard materialized in the door, wearing a haggard expression. His coat was sporting a few new gashes and a rather wet patch on his chest, presumably the work of the police girl's all-consuming grief. She also noted that there was a distinct lack of cat.

The Hellsing director fixed him with a pointed glare. "Alucard, what did you do?"

The vampire's eyes met his master's, and he looked away, finding the ground to be suddenly interesting.

"Alucard!" Integra snapped over the draculina's disconsolate wails. "What did you do?!"

"Nothing! I swear," he sighed.

"Where's the cat?" the blonde woman hissed. Her expression was enough to send a lesser man scampering.

As it was, Alucard took a step back before answering, "Gone."

Sera's shoulders shook with renewed intensity as she was reminded of her missing pet. The Hellsing director massaged her temples with tense hands . "Please tell me you didn't eat our cat."

"I didn't eat your cat!"

"Then why is she crying?" Integra countered, gesturing to the sobbing girl in her lap.

The eternal teenager sniffled loudly, wiping her tears on the edge older woman's coat. "Kasha ran away."

The human raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You mean to tell me that two _vampires_ weren't able to catch a cat?"

Alucard once again found himself unable to meet his master's intense gaze. Seras, too, looked into the corners of the room.

Integra threw her hands up in the air. "Britain is doomed."

"I'll get the damn cat back," the No-Life King muttered darkly, hating the words that passed through his own lips. He couldn't bear to see his protegee so utterly devastated and his master so utterly disappointed. He'd gladly get a dozen sodding cats, demonic or otherwise, if it would get the two women back to normal. Well, maybe not gladly.

Seras smiled at him, eyes red-rimmed, and reached for the Hellsing director's coat again. Integra deftly pulled her jacket out of the draculina's reach and placed a handkerchief in the girl's hand instead. Seras blew her nose loudly, then asked her master, "Really?"

He nodded once, his face the very image of seriousness. His expression only softened when the police girl launched herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck with repeated whispers of thankfulness. Alucard found himself sincerely hoping that he found the blasted cat, and swiftly.

The master vampire trundled back into the Hellsing manor just as the sun was coming up. He had been out all night searching for the accursed cat with every last bit of his abilities. He'd become one with the shadows of London, jetting around the streets and peering into every dark corner faster than the eye could see. He'd summoned his hell hound Baskerville to track the demon's scent from where they'd last seen her outside the vet's office, but her trail was lost among the myriad of London smells. He'd even closed his eyes, sat stock still, and just listened for the tiny pitter-patter of her feet. After nearly ten hours, he was ready to throw in the towel. Maybe the demon-cat had been eaten stray dogs, or had fallen into the Thames. All he knew was it was nowhere to be-

Alucard opened the door to his basement lair, and there she was, perched on the foot of his coffin. Her feline lips twisted in ways that shouldn't be possible as she smiled coldly at the vampire. Her black tail twitched in amusement as she watched his expression morph into shock, then into rage. The room seemed to grow even darker as the shadows wrapped themselves around their master, answering to his beck and call. The air darkened around the cat, who looked around with wild red eyes as she realized what was about to happen. She bounded from side to side, trying to dodge the oncoming storm, but the shadows were far more agile than even her. Tendrils of nothingness darted up from the ground, wrapping themselves around her tiny paws and securing her firmly in place.

"Why are you keeping me here, vampire?" she growled, struggling against the darkness. "Let me go!"

"Now that_ is_ a good question. The women upstairs are already distraught. Would they be any more distraught if I simply killed you?" He let the shadows squeeze a little tighter, and was rewarded with a puff of air forced from the demon's lungs. "It would make my life much more pleasant."

"My masters are displeased with your reluctance," Kasha informed him through narrowed eyes. "They won't leave me here. They'll send others."

"I can kill others," Alucard shrugged.

"But you can't kill me?"

The vampire sighed heavily. "I'd rather not. You see, if I carry you back upstairs to my master, I'll be a hero for a few hours. They'll be happy, and more importantly quiet, and I can get a few hours of shut-eye before the next crisis."

"Why not let me take you to my masters instead? Then I'll be out of your hair forever. My masters are powerful. They can get you another cat - an identical one! Your loved ones will never know the difference."

"That is so very tempting," Alucard conceded, wishing for what felt like the hundredth time that he could just snap the demon's neck and be done with its infuriating existence. "But I've seen Hell, and sent many others there in pieces. No one ever escapes unscathed. I'm sure I could find my way back home, but what would the cost be? I'll pass, thank you."

"You're never going to come with me, are you." It wasn't a question, so much as a realization. "I could drive you insane for years, and still you'd stay with your human and the vampire girl."

"Only death will separate me from them."

Kasha sighed. "It would be so easy to arrange, especially for the human. One convincing expression, and she'd let me onto her bed, and snuggle me as she fell asleep. She'd never wake up." She sighed again. "But you'd skin me alive the moment I tried anything. Still, it's nice to dream."

"Face it, cat. You're stuck here with me."

The hell-beast fixed the vampire with an odd stare. "I... I know. Then why are we fighting?"

Alucard shrugged. "It's fun. How else am I supposed to entertain myself?"

She rolled her ruby eyes in a very un-catlike manner. "I'm proposing a truce, you aggressive nincompoop."

"Scathing," the No-Life King said dryly. But he allowed the shadows to release the kasha and retreat back to the corners of the room. "Stay away from my coat, or I'll use your fur to line my collar." His fingers absentmindedly stroked the crimson fabric where the creature's sharp claws had punctured it.

"Your ostentatious clothing will survive, so long as I stay away from that cold, awful place." She gave a violent shudder.

"You mean the vet," Alucard realized with a hint of amusement. "Tell that to Integra. For all she knows, you could have rabies, or fleas, or worms, or mange, or the plague-"

"This is not a negotiation!" the feline hissed.

"Fine," the No-Life King agreed. "I won't push my master to send you to the vet, but I won't stop her if that is her decision."

"I suppose it will have to do," Kasha conceded. "I suppose that just leaves us to prepare."

"For what?" Alucard asked with a derisive snort.

The demonic cat's fur hackled along her spine. "For the others."


End file.
